


Broken Glass

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: The Hour (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coffee, Cooking, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Ficlet, Hospitals, Injury, Introspection, Male-Female Friendship, Swearing, Vulnerability, Whiskey & Scotch, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22001950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: A series of vignettes, from an anonymous prompt. Set from pre- to post-canon.
Relationships: Freddie Lyon & Lix Storm, Freddie Lyon/Lix Storm
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Broken Glass

In the episode of her winning the desk, they had broken a glass. They had consumed the whisky in hilarity and boasting, and Freddie, bowing with a flourish in defeat, had knocked a tumbler off the corner of the desk.

“Shit!” He had covered his face with one hand, breathless, half-genuinely alarmed.

“Darling,” said Lix, “you are quite definitely drunk.”

“And you’re — you’re not, I suppose?”

“Not ’s drunk as you are.” Remarkably, they had succeeded in cleaning it up without cutting themselves. Only one shard of glass, gleaming in the morning light, threatened to betray them the next day. Lix had picked it up and brandished it like a trophy, before burying it at the base of the potted plant. And then, she had made a pot of very strong coffee.

*

The ashtray had only been chipped, knocked off the desk as they claimed each other in the dark. It was still perfectly functional. Still, somehow, it made Lix melancholy, among the rest of the disorderly litter on her desk. She told herself it was silly, and kept it. And she kept it still: increasingly as a souvenir and talisman, when Freddie left and didn’t come back. When Randall took over, she smoked more, and then — Lix told herself — it would have been stupid to get rid of it.

*

St. Mary’s Hospital, behind the old-fashioned brick facade, was resplendently modern in steel and glass. “Hello, sweetheart,” said Lix.

“Hello, Lix.” Strange, the stillness of that lithe body. “I can’t see you properly; come over here.” As she pulled the chair around to face him, he added, “It’s not catching.”

She was shocked into something like a laugh. “You are astonishing, Freddie.” She settled herself against the creaking vinyl. “Tell me how you are.” He blinked rapidly, regarding her with something like fear glittering in his eye. “At least tell me how they’re treating you.”

A slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, couldn’t be better.” He coughed, and it seemed an eternity as she waited for him to catch his breath, forcing herself not to exclaim, not to sympathize.

Lix folded her hands in her lap, and fought down the urge to smash things, to take the glass that held only water, and drop it, and let it shatter against the floor.

*

“You don’t have to humor the invalid.”

“Nonsense, Freddie,” says Lix crisply. “I’m doing a favor for our esteemed producer: getting out from under her feet while she breaks the story. You know me. Always a mess of nerves on the big night.”

“You? Never.”

Lix makes a face at him. “All right. So maybe I just wanted to show off my chicken and rice.”

“Smells nice.” She knows the admission is an acquiescence.

“Paprika and thyme — and garlic, of course. Hand me the dishtowel, will you? Lovely. Easiest if I dish up at the table, I think. Bring the wine, won’t you?”

She tosses the question over her shoulder, as if casually. Of course, it is anything but that: it is intended as an accommodation of his still-stiff leg, of the fingers that she has still never seen fully straight. He had set the table before she arrived, and as Freddie was the least domestic of men, this worries her.

She hears the dull sound of his collision with the corner of the table, and then, a hesitant moment later, the shattering glass.

“Shit,” says Freddie. “Shit, shit.”

Lix sets the skillet down on a trivet, and is in time to keep him from setting his hand down on the sticky mess of shards. “All right,” says Lix, his wrist firmly encircled. “No harm done.”

“Damn it,” says Freddie. He will not meet her eyes. He is breathing too quickly, and too quick is his pulse under her fingers. “They keep saying — the doctors — they keep saying that it’s fine, and…”

“All right, Freddie,” says Lix, and gathers him into her arms, taking the undamaged glass from his right hand. “All right.” He allows himself to lean against her; his narrow shoulders begin to shake. “All right, Freddie,” says Lix again. “It’s only broken glass.”


End file.
